Seven days later, Rebecca clutched a fistful of bills and gazed wide-eyed at her exclusive circle of toadies and underlings.

"I cannot understand how so many of you believe her!" she tittered. "Ms Simmons is going to arrive alone with some flimsy excuse for where herboyfriend had to be at the last minute and I am walking out of here rich!"

"Yeah," Tate Johnson guffawed. "And then, when Hot Teacher's defences are low, Greg's gonna ask her out!"

He raised a hand to the tall pimply boy next to him who slapped it vigorously. "Hot teacher!"

"As if, Greg." Nicole rolled her eyes in exasperation. "She's clearly desperate but I don't think even Ms Simmons would stoop that low."

"Hey guys!" A peppy voice broke into the clique. "Who's ready to help get the decorations up?"

"Coming, Sarah," Rebecca called, pocketing the wad of cash and mentally planning which boutique she might drop it at the following morning.

"Okay!" Sarah enthused – they didn't make her head cheerleader for nothing. "I need two people to lay out the candles and sprinkle glitter stars on the tables, I need four people up on ladders running the chiffon over and under the ceiling beams, I need about eight people to tie the big bows on the back of the chairs and then another two to stick the big stars all over the windows."

"I call windows!" Nicole shouted, grabbing Rebecca's hand and yanking her towards the pile of immaculately cut-out silver cardboard stars. Precariously balancing herself on the rickety step-ladder, Rebecca claimed the job of sticking, leaving Nicole on the floor to apply the loops of tape and pass them up to her.

As Rebecca leant against the glass, waiting for her friend to find the end of the roll of tape, she gazed absent-mindedly down at the ground below. The school was situated on a fairly quiet street so not much was happening to entertain her.

Nicole seemed to have wandered off to find someone to help so Rebecca was only too ready to pass the time by watching with interest as a well-built and attractive man cycled into view on the other side of the high wire fence that surrounded the school. He had already performed some sort of stylish half-dismount manoeuvre before he'd even brought the bike to a stop and he moved so elegantly in his fitted moleskins and pointy brown brogues that Rebecca found herself quite enamoured.

Mmmm.

The man's checked shirt-sleeves were rolled to the elbows and he wore a stylish leather satchel over one shoulder. Her eyes bored into him as he stood up from chaining his bike, running one long-fingered hand through his curls and fishing in his pocket for his phone with the other.

Rebecca struck a sultry pose on the step-ladder willing him to look up at her. There were a few hours left. She could always ditch Jason Langford. This guy was way better looking.

At last, Nicole wandered back to the window, trying unsuccessfully to break the tape between her teeth.

"Nicky!" Rebecca hissed. "Come and check out this guy!"

He had his back to them now, talking on his phone, one hand resting high on his hip.

Nicole peered out the window to see what the fuss was all about. "Well, there's nothing wrong with that back view," she observed, giggling.

He turned back towards them causing Nicole to gasp appreciatively at the eyes and bone structure on display, and the two girls watched as his attention was suddenly claimed by something or someone under the awning below them.

The man's extremely handsome face softened into a dopey grin at whatever it was and he raised his arms slightly and slipped his fingers through the wire links of the fence, leaning intently forward.

Intrigued by what Rebecca and Nicole were staring at, a small crowd of sycophants had now gathered around the upstairs window, all the girls gasping at this lanky and attractive man leaning nonchalantly against the school fence and grinning maddeningly at whoever it was he was talking to.

The gasping girls soon drew the boys who arrived at the window just in time to see the object of Handsome Cyclist's affection step out from under the awning and walk across the lawn to meet him at the fence.

"Hot Teacher!" bellowed Greg Bacewicz. "Noooooooo!"

Ms Simmons linked her fingers through the fence in such a way that they tangled with the fingers of Handsome Cyclist. From two floors up, the crowd of onlookers couldn't make out what was said but the spark between the pair was unmistakeable.

"Pay up, Becky!" Tate demanded. "That there has got to be Engineer Leo Fitz. And he looks pretty real to me."

Rebecca's jaw dropped as she watched her Science teacher begin walking, one hand flat against the metal links of the fence, the hunk mirroring her movements, his hand against hers, gazing at her adoringly. She was leading him towards the school gate and closer to their upstairs vantage point.

"Nothing's decided until we see them kiss!" Rebecca cried, shoving her hand in her pocket and clutching possessively at the bills she'd come to love like children. Children that she'd callously barter into slavery at the mall the next day.

But the minute Ms Simmons opened the gate to him, the handsome man pulled their Science teacher into his arms and kissed her in a manner completely inappropriate for the "Kiss-and-Ride" zone.

A whoop went up from those to whom the aspiring book-maker now owed money, so loud that it drew the attention of the couple beneath. They jumped apart, Ms Simmons scanning the building for the source of the outburst. Sighting half the outgoing senior class looking down at them from the window above, she flushed prettily, and pushed her gorgeous significant other across the lawn, back under the awning and out of sight.

Rebecca parcelled out the dollars she had and then resignedly borrowed Nicole's purple glitter gel pen to write out the remaining number of humiliating IOUs on the back of silver cardboard stars.

"So, were the two nasty pieces of work up there?" Fitz asked, once he'd taken advantage of the awning and hello-ed her to his satisfaction.

Jemma nodded, grinning. "They looked horrified."

"A job well done," he laughed, and then his expression inexplicably turned anxious.

"Fitz?" Jemma asked, ducking her head to try and meet his lowered gaze. "What's wrong?"

He shrugged. "I guess I've sort of served my purpose now, haven't I?" he asked quietly. "The awkward favour? You're not going to need me around anymore after this."

She laughed out loud. "Well, I am an independent, self-reliant, career-minded woman who don't need no man."

Fitz didn't quite seem to see the humour.

Jemma let out an exasperated sigh. "Fitz! If I only needed you to prove myself in the eyes of a couple of bitchy school girls, why would I have also chosen to spend every single night this week with you?"

He raised his head and tentatively met her eye. "Practice?"

"Didn't we agree that we pretty much nailed kissing on that first night?" she asked incredulously. "It's been amazing enough for me to come back for several hours of it since."

A slight smile played at the corner of Fitz's lips. "I think it's been at least a day's worth, actually, if we were to tally it all up."

"Right!" She nodded. "And I seem to recall you driving a pretty hard bargain that night, don't you remember? In my head the kissing's all been in keeping with our agreement."

A relieved grin broke over Fitz's face, utterly transforming his countenance. "Did, Jemma Simmons, the upstairs neighbour I've fantasised about for months, really grant me indefinite snogging rights?"

"Absolutely," Jemma replied, smiling warmly back.

"Brilliant," he breathed, swooping in to exercise his newly reaffirmed privilege.

"When do we get to go upstairs and gross-out your students?" he asked, breathing hard against the soft skin under her ear some moments later.

"Not for a little while yet," she replied, quite out of breath herself. "Shall we lock ourselves in my classroom for an hour or so?"

Fitz nodded vigorously, wide-eyed and momentarily rendered speechless as she tugged him across court-marked concrete and through long corridors wall-to-wall with lockers. She yanked him into her lab, slammed the door and pushed him up against it to passionately resume their previous activity.

He was in a lab. He was in a pristine school science lab, surrounded by shining glass and gas taps and hanging periodic table charts from the seventies. He was in a school science lab and the incredibly hot Ms Simmons had her tongue against his ear. This was the stuff his dreams were made of.

That, however, was not.

"Wo! Wo, Jemma," he intoned raspily, grasping her gently by the shoulders.

She proved quite difficult to derail from planting a searing line of kisses that was descending delightfully into the depths of his open collar.

"Simmons!" he cried, physically holding her back until her eyes refocused. He pointed wordlessly at the classroom window.

It didn't take Jemma long to work out what was coming. She took a deep breath to centre herself, tucking the flyaway tresses that Fitz had pulled loose behind her ears as neatly as possible

Leering in at the window was the same bunch of students, now laughing and pointing through the glass, while theatrically pretending to stick cardboard silver stars.

"Fitz," she began, her tone far too casual and off-hand for a teacher just caught by students enthusiastically making out with her boyfriend in her classroom.

"Yes, Jemma?" he replied, tucking in his shirt and doing up the couple of buttons that had somehow popped open.

"We've put in enough of an appearance for this evening's graduation, wouldn't you say?"

"Well, umm, don't you have, I don't know, responsibilities?" he asked, wondering why on earth they would be there if she didn't.

She turned back to look at him sheepishly. "As it happens, no I don't."

Fitz's baffled expression asked the question for him.

"First year teachers are notorious for over-committing themselves, Fitz!" she cried. "This is why our burn-out rates are so high!"

He raised his open palms in surrender against the vehemence of her point.

She went on, suddenly regaining her calm. "The deputy principal told me that himself this very afternoon when he suggested I go home and begin my holidays early instead of staying for tonight's graduation."

He laughed helplessly. "So, if I'm off the hook for your awkward favour, is there anything else I can do for you instead?"

"Bottle of wine and a pizza?" she suggested. "And maybe a foot massage?"

Fitz grinned. "Your place or mine?"

Jemma steadily ignored the students cat-calling at the window and walked calmly to her desk to retrieve her belongings.

"Anywhere but here."

.

.

So, there it is folks!

This little school fence scene was inspired by the characters Jeff Malene and Janey Glenn in a formative film of my childhood. If you know it, watch out! Your age is showing!
"Velcro. Next to the Walkman and tab it is the coolest invention of the 20th century."

HUGE shout out to the multi-award winning author (sounds so cool, hey!? And oh so deserving!), recoveringrabbit (ao3), who cheered me on and beta-ed some earlier kissing and commiserated with me about the awfulness of writing kissing and was super nice and awesome (as is her M.O.) and just generally inspires me to want to be a better writer – which unfortunately has not kicked-in yet (gosh, I don't want to drag her down into the muck that is this silly thing when her things are so transcendent!) but will hopefully do so by the time I really get serious about tackling "The Master and the Midwife".

If you have not read her stuff, FIX THAT RIGHT NOW. "Murder By Mistake" will BLOW YOUR SOCKS OFF and everything else she's written is pretty darn magnificent too!